Program Evaluation Summary

              Vol. 3, No. 1 October 2004
Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority
Program Evaluation
Summary
Rod R. Blagojevich, Governor
Sheldon Sorosky, Chairman
Lori G. Levin, Executive Director
120 S. Riverside Plaza, Suite 1016
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Phone: 312-793-8550, TDD: 312-793-4170,
Fax: 312-793-8422
website: www.icjia.state.il.us
Program Evaluation Summaries are derived from program
evaluations funded or conducted by the Authority. The full
evaluation reports are available from the Authority.
For more information about this or other publications from
the Authority, please contact the Authority’s Criminal
Justice Information Clearinghouse or visit our website.
Printed by authority of the State of Illinois, October 2004.
Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority
By David E. Olson, Ph.D., Rebecca Juergens, and Steven P. Karr
The increase in Illinois’ prison admissions and
population during the past 15 years has been
fueled in large part by sentences for drug law
violations and high rates of return to prison, both of
which are significantly related to the prevalence of
substance abuse problems among those entering and
exiting prison. However, despite this trend, resources
have not been available to adequately meet the treat-ment
needs of Illinois’ prison population. By 2003,
roughly 35,000 adults were admitted to and released
from prison in Illinois, and Illinois’ prison population
stood at nearly 45,000 inmates (Figure 1). In response
to this situation, and a desire to improve public safety
by reducing recidivism among drug-involved offenders,
Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich announced during his 2003
State of the State address his goal of reopening the
Sheridan Correctional Center as a prison that could
serve as a national model for how to safely and effec-tively
manage these offenders while incarcerated and
following their release back into Illinois’ communities.
The Sheridan Correctional Center is a medium-security
prison located about 70 miles southwest of Chicago.
Following this announcement, criminal justice and
social service policy makers, practitioners, and re-searchers
from Illinois and across the nation were
brought together by the Governor’s Office to develop
what could be one of the largest and most comprehen-sive
prisons in the country devoted to substance abuse
treatment and inmate reentry, including both institu-tional
and post-release programming. The outcome of
this yearlong planning process culminated in the
reopening of the Sheridan Correctional Center as a
fully-dedicated Therapeutic Community (TC) on Jan. 2,
2004, when the first 50 inmates were admitted to the
facility. In general, Therapeutic Communities are
“residential [programs] that use a hierarchical model
with treatment strategies that reflect increased levels
of personal and social responsibility. Peer influence,
mediated through a variety of group processes, is used
to help individuals learn and assimilate social norms
and develop more effective social skills” (National
Institute on Drug Abuse, 2002). By the end of June
2004, almost 900 inmates were at Sheridan, and it is
projected that the first large cohorts of participants will
be released during Fall 2004.
Impetus and implementation of the
Sheridan Correctional Center Therapeutic
Community